Wednesday 29th June, 7pm
Venue: Rossiter Books, Ross on Wye
Tickets £6 (£3 redeemable against the book at the event)
A gripping account of the billion-dollar timber black market — and how it intersects with environmentalism, class, and culture.
In Tree Thieves, Lyndsie Bourgon takes us deep into the underbelly of the illegal timber market. So much of what Lyndsie writes about in the book is steeped in the history of the Forest of Dean.
Tree Thieves is about the much under-reported, billion dollar timber black market, and the trees that are poached from the world’s forests. The roots of the book lie in English history, with the 13th Century Charter of the Forest setting the precedent for international timber laws today. This charter has been upheld through time by verderers: an official position created in the middle ages to police forests. Verderers exist to this day, but only in the New Forest, Epping Forest and the Forest of Dean, who have just appointed the first female verderer in the 900 year history of the position.
Old-growth trees are invaluable and irreplaceable for both humans and wildlife, and are the oldest living things on earth. But the morality of tree poaching is not as simple as we might think: stealing trees is a form of deeply rooted protest, and a side effect of environmental preservation and protection that doesn’t include communities that have been uprooted or marginalized when park boundaries are drawn. As Bourgon discovers, failing to include working class and rural communities in the preservation of these awe-inducing ecosystems can lead to catastrophic results.
This is a fascinating book, combining lyrical nature writing with an urgent and timely message, perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane, Nick Hayes and Helen Macdonald.
Lyndsie Bourgon is a writer, oral historian, and 2018 National Geographic Explorer based in British Columbia. She writes about the environment and its entanglement with history, culture, and identity.